Battlestar Galactica
Past, Present, Future
Chapter Five
Disaster at Molocay
Word of the disaster spread thru the room quickly. The faces of all those present told the story. Every emotion possible was displayed within the room…… sadness, anger, fear, and a dozen others, but the most evident was shock. It was in the eyes of everyone.
As soon as he had read the message, Commander Verga knew that everything had changed. The entire Fifth Fleet gone. All those people, many of whom he had been friends with…… all gone!
Including Cain.
Verga kept asking himself, over and over…… How could it have happened? But he had no answers….. yet! Only questions, but by the Lords of Kobol he swore he would have those answers. For now thou, he had other duties to perform.
"Commander Bannon, I want the senior staff from the fleet and the base assembled in briefing room Alpha in ten centons." he said. "I'd also like to have the ship masters and the civilian leaders assembled in the auditorium for a briefing in two centars."
Bannon nodded his head and went to issue the orders. Verga turned to Colonel Leon, who was still looking like he was about to faint.
"Colonel Leon, I want you to have your communications staff continuously monitor all frequencies for any future word from that ship. I want confirmation as to what ship that message came from, how they came by the information and what happened. I want to know every detail."
"Yes sir, I'll get right on it." the Colonel said, still not totally cognoscente of what he was doing.
Verga then turned to Colonel Eller, who stood next to the Commander, staring into his glass of ambrosia, totally lost in thought. Verga remembered the Colonel telling him about his two sons serving under Cain.
"Colonel, until we get some kind of valid verification, you shouldn't assume the worst. There is every possibility that the report we have was wrong." Verga said compassionately.
Eller looked up from his drink and smiled slightly, "I know Commander, I was just remembering the last thing my oldest boy said to me before I left. He told me to be careful out here because we didn't know what we would run into way out here."
Verga nodded his head in understanding.
"I just wonder how his mother will handle the news. As a warrior, I've always known this could happen, but she has never accepted the possibility." Eller continued.
Verga placed a hand on the big Colonels shoulder and said, "Come on, let's go to the briefing room. We have a lot to do."
Eller nodded his head, downed the rest of his drink and followed the Commander out of the now nearly empty room.
In the briefing room ten centons later, all the senior Colonial officers were present. It was easy to gather them all so quickly since they had all been in attendance of the gathering before the news of the Fifth Fleet arrived. Verga, Bannon and Commander Raylac sat at the head of the large, triangular shaped table along with Colonel Eller and Colonel Leon. Colonels Sachs, Andrea, Goff, Dyson, and Swires were there as was Major Orozo and Captain Gellis. Doctors Grego and Haley were also present.
Verga stood up and moved to the small lectern and began to speak.
"Gentleman, as you all know, a message was intercepted by the communications section of the base concerning the Fifth Fleet. The early reports are that the Fifth Fleet was destroyed at Molocay. Now, before I say any more, I must say that this report has not yet been verified and could very well be false. Until we get some kind of verification, I want to keep this under wraps. No mention of this is to be made outside of this command center. Colonel Leon has already issued orders to his communications people to say nothing and all those at the party have been told the same thing. I don't want a panic started in the fleet or on the base. Is that understood?"
Verga looked at his staff, making sure all of them knew he meant what he said. Convinced he had made this point, he continued.
"Colonel Leon, anything further information concerning the Fifth Fleet or the ship that sent the message?"
Colonel Leon opened a folder he had brought with him and began to read from it.
"No further word has been received as yet, but you have to realize that we are well out of the range of any Colonial transmitters or relay stations. A message from the Colonies takes on the average about six to seven sectars to reach us. Molocay is nearly twice that distance from here. As for the ship that sent the message, it has been identified as the Torrent, a Guardian class Destroyer that was listed as being with the Fifth Fleet when they departed for Molocay. They may be having some kind of transmitter problems since we haven't heard from them since the initial message. The Torrent did cross the outer detection grid approximately forty centons ago and the readings we got then showed it was traveling at high speed on a direct course toward us."
"Then we can safely assume they know we're here then?" Bannon said.
"I'd say that's a safe bet Commander." Leon said. "From what my communications people tell me, the signal they received was on one of our special frequencies, on an extremely tight beam. I have no doubt that they know exactly where we are and how to contact us."
"How long before the Torrent arrives at the asteroid field Colonel?" Verga asked.
"At the speed they were traveling, they should reach the asteroid belt in approximately three sectons. I suggest we send out a patrol to intercept the Torrent before it gets too close, just in case this is some kind of Cylon deception." Leon said.
Verga nodded his head and looked over at Commander Raylac.
"Commander, how would you feel about taking the Hyperion out and finding out what's going on with the Torrent?"
"I don't see a problem with it sir, but why not send a couple of Destroyers or Frigates?" he asked.
"If this is some kind of Cylon trick, they won't be as apt to try anything if their facing a Gunstar." Verga reasoned.
Raylac had to agree with his Commanders reasoning.
"I'll depart as soon as we finish here." he said.
"Good, I'll need you to make contact with them and find out what in Hades is going on and why they stopped transmitting after that one short message. Contact me as soon as you can Commander." Verga ordered. "Until then, I want this base on alert status. Colonel Leon, you'll be in command of the base defenses, Commander Bannon, you will take charge of all of our defense fleet operations. Make a patrol roster and assign your section leaders. Any questions?"
"What do we tell the civilians sir?" asked Colonel Dyson.
"For now, we tell them nothing. We keep this as low profile as possible. I've scheduled a meeting with the civilian ship masters and the leaders of the various work groups to discuss base operations and getting started on building these ships. I hope to have more information by then so I can tell them something, but until I have something I can verify, I don't want the civilians to know. Is that clear?"
"Yes sir!" Dyson said.
"Alright, lets get busy and find out what we have going here." Verga said.
With that, everyone departed for their various posts.
Less then two centars later, Commander Verga walked in to the large auditorium and made his way to the front of the room. He was joined by Commander Bannon, Colonel Eller, Doctor Grego and Doctor Haley.
The auditorium was a huge room. It had tiered seating and was capable of seating up to a thousand people. The room was over half full as the ship masters of the fleet and the base leaders filled the room. Verga listened to the conversations of the people assembled to see if any of them might be talking about the possible disaster involving the Fifth Fleet. Most of what he heard was about the station and the work ahead.
This was good. It seemed that the story had for now stayed among the warriors in the command center.
Verga went to the podium and called the room to silence. He then started to outline the job ahead and what was expected of each group of workers. He explained the work schedule and the personnel rotation that would be taking place…… at least the planned rotation. As he went on, a messenger from the communications center entered and made her way to the front of the room. She handed the page to Commander Bannon and departed. Bannon read the message quickly, then went over to speak with Verga. After a few moments of whispered conversation, Bannon returned to his seat and Verga read the message himself.
"Ladies and Gentlemen, I have just been handed a message detailing some very grave news." Verga began. "Earlier this day, we received a partial message from a ship of the Fifth Fleet. The signal was very garbled and we were only able to get part of it before the signal was lost. The message I just received is from that same ship and seems to confirm the first message. They are informing me that the Fifth Fleet has been destroyed by the Cylons."
Immediately, the room grew hushed.
"The ship sending this message, the Colonial Destroyer Torrent, was one of the escort vessels assigned to Fifth Fleet. We have no further details at this time. I have already dispatched the Hyperion to rendezvous with the Torrent and escort them back here to Phantom Base. They should arrive here in three sectons, hopefully with more information then we have. Until then however, we will proceed with bringing this base to life and start building. So, let's get down to business!"
"Wait a centon! You drop a bombshell like that on us and expect us to just move on like nothing has happened?" a man yelled from the front row.
Verga fixed his eyes on the man and in a very calm, clear voice said to him, "At this time sir, there is nothing we can do for our comrades. We do however have a mission to complete here. We have ships and missiles to build and Tylium to refine. It is my intention to carry out that mission. So unless you have a better idea, I say let's get started!"
The man in the front row sat down and said no more, seeing the look in the Commanders eyes. The rest of the briefing went on without interruption, thou Verga knew most of what he said had not been heard. Everyone in that room, himself included, was thinking about the Fifth Fleet.
For the next secton, everyone made themselves busy with the unloading of the supplies and machinery they had brought with them from the colonies, living quarters were assigned and settled into and facilities were inspected and people familiarized themselves with the base. But always at the forefront of their minds was what had happened to the Fifth Fleet.
The same was true for Commander Verga and his staff as well. Verga spent centar after centar sitting in the command post, waiting for some word from Raylac. Colonel Leon had hardly left the communications center since the Hyperion departed. Bannon had kept busy assigning patrol duties to the twenty four Destroyers and twelve Frigates at his disposal.
Finally, a message came in from the Hyperion. It was routed up to Commander Verga's station where most of the senior staff had been spending the majority of their time the past few days.
"Hyperion to Phantom Base, come in please!" came the voice of Commander Raylac.
"This is Phantom Base, go ahead Hyperion." Verga responded.
"Commander, we've made contact with the Torrent. They lost their long range communications array; it was damaged in the battle with the Cylons, that's why they weren't able to contact us." Raylac reported.
"What did they say about the Fifth Fleet? About Cain?" Verga asked the inevitable question, not knowing whether or not he wanted the answer.
There was a pause, only for a moment, but it seemed to last an eternity. Raylac's voice was low and sad.
"It's as we feared Commander, the officer in command of the Torrent, a Lieutenant Kerr, reported that the Cylons set an ambush for them at Molocay."
"How did they get away?" Verga asked. "And why is a lieutenant commanding a Destroyer? That's a command for a Major or a Colonel."
"Yes sir, it is, but Lieutenant Kerr was the ranking surviving officer and assumed command by Commander Cain's personal orders. He was also ordered to withdraw from the battle and make his way to Phantom Base." Raylac informed Verga. "Cain knew they were finished, so he sent the information on how to locate the base to the Torrent and sent them to us."
Verga sat for a moment without saying a thing; he just stared at the screen with Raylac's face on it, his mind a million kilometrons away. Then he refocused his thoughts.
"Where's the Lieutenant now Commander?" He asked.
"He's in the Life Center aboard the Hyperion sir; he was suffering from second and third degree burns and broken bones in his arm, shoulder and leg. The Life Center on the Torrent was destroyed in the battle and all but two med techs were killed." Raylac said. "Their ship is a mess Commander, but they did one Hades of a job repairing it and getting this far. It's a miracle that it didn't blow apart."
"I see, will it make it back to the base Commander?" Verga asked.
"I think so sir. I sent Colonel Goff and three repair parties over to help. Goff reports that the most serious damage has been repaired and that with the exception of the long range communications array, all major systems are operational."
Verga shook his head in amazement. This one ship, its senior officers all dead, massive casualties, extensive damage, and outnumbered, had not only managed to survive, but had made good its escape.
"Very well Commander, bring her home. I want to take a look at the ships logs and communications records. Let's see if we can find out what happened to the fleet." Verga said.
It took almost another two sectons before the Hyperion returned to Phantom Base with the Torrent tucked in close to port. Every eye on the base was glued to the little ship as it sailed past, the hull a patchwork of colors from all the different repairs that had been done. It was truly a miracle that they had made it. Once the Hyperion and Torrent were moored in the staging area, a shuttle picked up Raylac, Goff, and Kerr and took them to the command center.
As the door slide open to the command center, every eye was on the young officer being pushed in a wheelchair. He was covered in bandages and had his arm, shoulder and leg in immobilizers. Thou it was easy to tell the young man was in excruciating pain, he had refused any pain relieving medications until he had made his report to the Commander. They made their way to the briefing room where the senior staff was waiting.
Commander Verga winced when he saw how badly injured the Lieutenant was, thinking that he should delay this debriefing until the man had time to recover some, but he knew that the information he had was vital to them, so as distasteful as it was, he would have to go thru with it. Once the Lieutenant was rolled up to the foot of the table, Verga began.
"First, let me thank you for coming here Lieutenant. I wish we could delay these proceedings until you were feeling better, but I'm sure you realize how important it is that we ask you these questions. We'll try and make this as quick as possible."
"I understand fully Commander." Lieutenant Kerr said in obvious pain.
Verga gave the man a nod and then asked simply, "Tell us what happened."
Lieutenant Kerr took a deep breath then began to tell his story.
"Things went pretty well at first. We made our way to a point just outside the Molocay system, where Cain had all ships refuel. He sent the empty tankers back home while the rest of the fleet continued on. When we entered the system, the Pegasus reported that they had three Baseships and their escorts on scanners near the third planet of the system. Cain ordered the fleet forward to engage and destroy them. When the Cylons spotted us they began to head away from us, toward the sixth planet in the system. We pursued them thru the system until they reached the eighth planet and then they reversed course, that's when all Hades broke loose!"
Kerr stopped talking at that point; a far distant look came to his face as the events of that day returned in a tidal wave.
"What happened then son?" asked Verga gently.
A tear streamed down the young mans face from under the bandages covering his right eye and his good hand tightened on the arm of the wheelchair as the memories of that horrid day returned to his mind. After taking a moment to regroup, Lieutenant Kerr continued.
"We all thought they were turning around to fight, so Cain ordered the Battlestars to begin launching their fighters while the escorts moved in on the flanks. Normally, the escorts would form a protective screen around the Battlestars, but Cain wanted to take these three Baseships out quickly, so he sent his Gunstars, Destroyers, and Frigates in to support the Viper squadrons and do as much damage to the Baseships as possible. But his plan backfired."
"How so? How could three Baseships destroy an entire fleet? Raylac asked.
Kerr shifted his one eyed gaze from Verga to Raylac, "Not three Baseships Commander….. Twelve!"
Every officer at the table sat up straight at this.
"Twelve Baseships! How did the Cylons get twelve Baseships within striking distance of Cain's fleet without his spotting them?" Verga asked.
"From what we picked up on our scanners, they must have been in a low orbit on the back side of the forth, fifth, and tenth planets of the system. All three planets are enormous and have very dense atmospheres which made it very difficult to scan thru. We didn't know they were there till they cleared the atmosphere. By then it was too late, they had us surrounded."
"What orders did Commander Cain issue once he knew it was a trap?" Verga asked, not believing that Cain could have been caught as unaware as it appeared he had.
"He ordered us to attack and punch thru." Kerr said. "Our ship was in the first wave and we engaged the Cylons head on, but the fighters ignored us for the most part, they went after the capital ships, the Battlestars and Gunstars."
"What happened then?" Verga asked.
"After we punched thru the Cylons, our C.O., Major Talus ordered me to reverse course and try and position the Torrent into a defensive position over the Pegasus."
"Did you make it?" this question from Colonel Leon.
"Yes sir, we were able to fight our way into position and lend support to the Pegasus's anti-fighter lasers. The other Battlestars were not so lucky though."
"What happened to them?" Verga asked.
"I didn't see what happened to most of them, only heard the reports that were coming in. I did however see the Battlestar Kastria destroyed, as well as the Gunstars Hydra and Geryon, as for the rest of the fleet, I couldn't say for sure." Kerr said.
"I see, tell us Lieutenant, how did your ship manage to escape? And what happened to Major Talus?" Verga asked. These were the questions everyone in the room were waiting for. They all wanted to know why only one vessel from the Fifth Fleet appeared to survive the Cylon ambush.
Lieutenant Kerr tried the sit up straight in his wheelchair, but was unable to do more then shift himself from the right side of the chair to the left.
"We were ordered by Commander Cain to withdraw from the battle and make our way here sir." Kerr said. "He transmitted coordinates and course information to us along with orders for you that I've turned over to Commander Raylac. Commander Cain had us head for the fuel depot at Parnassus. Once there, we were to refuel and standby to rendezvous with any other survivors, but none ever came. We waited for three days, making what repairs we could while we waited. After that, we moved on. We started off on the course Commander Cain gave us and followed the instructions he transmitted."
"And Major Talus? asked Verga.
"The Major was killed along with the exec and the operations officer when the overhead on the bridge collapsed. I was the only officer of a rank higher then Ensign alive on the bridge, so I assumed command." Kerr explained sadly.
"How were you injured Lieutenant?" Commander Bannon asked.
Kerr turned to Bannon, fatigue beginning to set in, and replied, "After we received the order to pull out, we came under attack from a phalanx of Cylon fighters. I was still at the helm and trying to maneuver when an explosion rocked the ship. I was thrown from my station and debris from the overhead fell and buried me. My shipmates were able to get me out and we managed to make our escape. I stayed on the bridge until such time as we were clear of the fighting. Then I was taken to the emergency medical station that had been set up on the mess decks. I turned over operational command to Ensign Hack until I was able to return to the bridge."
Commander Verga leaned back in his seat, his hands resting on his chest. He was very impressed with the young mans courage and determination. He would make a fine Commander someday, but for now, he would have to take a great deal of time for him to heal.
"Lieutenant Kerr, I thank you for your time and patience in dealing with this process." Commander Verga began. "The information you've given us has been invaluable. We will put it to the best possible use. As for yourself, I'm relieving you of all duties until further notice; you're to concentrate on getting well. I fear that in the yahren ahead, we're going to need all the ship commanders we can find, and I want you at your best when that day comes."
"Yes sir." Kerr said, his voice getting weaker by the micron.
Verga looked to the med techs that stood just behind the Lieutenant and nodded for them to take him back to the Life Center. They turned him around and wheeled him out.
Silence filled the room as the senior staff members watched the med techs wheel Lieutenant Kerr out, each one lost in his own thoughts. After the doors to the briefing room closed, Commander Verga began to speak.
"Well gentlemen, this creates a bit of a problem. Cain was the driving force behind this whole project. Now, in light of this news, I have to ask the question……. How do we proceed now?"
Nobody said a word for several moments as the implications of the statement were mulled over. What indeed were they suppose to do now? It was Commander Bannon that was the first to speak.
"Well, I for one think that as great a loss as this is, both personal and to the whole of humanity, I think it changes nothing! We still have a mission to complete, with or without Cain! I think it's what he would have wanted, and it would be the greatest tribute we could possibly give him."
"That may be true Commander," Verga said. "But how much can we truly accomplish here without Cain? It was Cain that was responsible for not only getting this base built, but also for providing the personnel to work here and the crews that will be manning the ships we built. I'm sure we can still build enough Battlestars to replace every ship that has been lost over the past five centuries, but without the trained people to man them, we might as well be building turbo flushes!"
What about that list of people Cain gave us?" Raylac asked. "Maybe we can get some help from them?"
Verga nodded his head. He had almost forgotten about the list of people that Cain had given them in their infodisks. The list contained the names of about two score people that were involved in some way with this project. Certainly some of them would be able to help.
"An excellent suggestion Commander, but whom from that list should we contact?" Verga mussed.
"I say we start at the top, Fleet Admiral Larson!" Bannon said. "If anyone from that list can help us, it would be him."
"I'd have to agree, Fleet Admiral Larson would be the wisest place to start. The only problem is, it will take the message nearly a yahren to reach the Colonies since there are no signal relay stations between here and the Purellus outpost." Verga reminded him.
"That's true sir, so I'd say the sooner we send off that signal, the sooner we'll get a response." Bannon said with his usual candor.
"Very well then, we'll send a message off to Fleet Admiral Larson requesting further instructions as to this project. Until we hear back from him, we will continue with operations as scheduled. We will build ourselves the greatest fleet of Battlestars and Vipers the Colonies has ever seen!
